<p>An 80-year-old rationalist is offering a prize of Rs 1 crore to any astrologer who can answer five questions correctly.</p>.<p>Prof A S Nataraj, president of the Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha, has been actively debunking superstitions for 20 years. </p>.<p>He published a book titled ‘Jyothishyakke Savaalu’ (Challenge to Astrology) in 2001, and ever since, has been inviting astrologers and fortune tellers to accept the challenge. “No astrologer has accepted it so far because fortune tellers have no confidence in their own work,” says Nataraj. “They have no guts.”</p>.<p>He says astrological predictions are false, unscientific, inconsistent and illogical, and nothing more than guesswork. When he first announced the challenge 20 years ago, some astrologers announced in the press they were accepting it, but backed off quietly. Nataraj had based the challenge on 10 questions then. This time, Nataraj has five questions for any astrologer who takes up the challenge. It is open to anyone in the predictive business, and includes astrologers, palmists and face readers.</p>.<p><strong>Believer to sceptic</strong></p>.<p>Nataraj, who has spoken extensively on TV shows about astrology, was at one time making astrological predictions himself, and is now a rationalist and champion of scientific temper.</p>.<p>“The Constitution says we should develop a scientific temper,” he says. “And that is my objective in announcing this challenge.”</p>.<p><strong>Look back, forward</strong></p>.<p>This year’s challenge comprises five questions. Participants, who can take up the challenge with a security deposit of Rs 50,000, will be sent a photograph or horoscope with five common questions: (i) In what stream has this person obtained the first degree (arts, science, engineering, law, etc). (ii) Is this person married? If yes, tell us the year, month and date of marriage. (iii) In what job is this person working? (iv) Will the person visit one of three pilgrim centres in Karnataka in the month coming up. (v) Also, in the same month, will the person buy a vehicle?</p>.<p>Participants forfeit their deposit if they try to contact the person whose past and future they are talking about.</p>.<p><strong>Rationalist who was once an astrologer</strong><br />Nataraj was a school teacher before he did an MA and became a professor of political science in Mumbai. In 2007, he started the Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha, in Bengaluru, to campaign against superstition.</p>.<p>“I was a believer until 20 years ago. I have studied all astrological texts, and drawn about 8,000 jatakas (horoscopes),” he told Metrolife. </p>.<p>An incident at a Mumbai nursing home shook his faith in astrology. He was about to draw the horoscopes of two just-born babies, a boy and a girl.</p>.<p>Their time of birth was the same. He realised he would have to write the exact same predictions for them.</p>.<p>Also, the texts said the children would be fair, because they were under the influence of certain planets and not the ‘dark’ planets. The first child he saw was dark. It was a matter of genetics: when the parents walked in, he realised they were dark, too.</p>.<p>In the last 20 years, he says, he has found predictive astrology completely lacking in any scientific basis. He then read many books on rationality and science, and completely changed his outlook.<br />“I found that humans and animals have birth, growth, figure, form, appearance, strength, intelligence, and everything else dependent on their genetics, environment, nature and behaviour, and not on the effect of planets, and their positions and conjunctions,” he says.</p>.<p>According to astrology, your entire future depends on the positioning of planets at the time of your birth chart. So if two people take birth at the exact same time, their birth charts should be the same, resulting in the same future. But that’s not the case in real life, he explains. It doesn’t turn out that way because every individual is different.</p>.<p>Nataraj believes ancient India had a keen interest in astronomy, but predictive astrology is an import. “It came from the Greeks in the 1st or 2nd century,” he says. “That has led to 2,000 years of lies.”</p>.<p><strong>Prize money</strong><br />Nataraj says he is offering his hard-earned, tax-paid money as a prize. “I am doing this because it’s important to me,” says the doughty fighter. </p>.<p><strong>Long-running challenge</strong><br />For 20 years in a row, Nataraj has dared astrologers to prove they can make accurate predictions, and offered a whopping cash prize. Once the details of the person is shared with the astrologer, he has to answer the questions within 15 days.</p>.<p>The last two questions (about the future) must come true within a month's time. No one has taken up the challenge yet.</p>.<p>Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha, the rationalist association he heads, works from Padmanabhanagar in Bengaluru. It can be contacted on 93437 43305 or rajsri6242@gmail.com</p>
<p>An 80-year-old rationalist is offering a prize of Rs 1 crore to any astrologer who can answer five questions correctly.</p>.<p>Prof A S Nataraj, president of the Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha, has been actively debunking superstitions for 20 years. </p>.<p>He published a book titled ‘Jyothishyakke Savaalu’ (Challenge to Astrology) in 2001, and ever since, has been inviting astrologers and fortune tellers to accept the challenge. “No astrologer has accepted it so far because fortune tellers have no confidence in their own work,” says Nataraj. “They have no guts.”</p>.<p>He says astrological predictions are false, unscientific, inconsistent and illogical, and nothing more than guesswork. When he first announced the challenge 20 years ago, some astrologers announced in the press they were accepting it, but backed off quietly. Nataraj had based the challenge on 10 questions then. This time, Nataraj has five questions for any astrologer who takes up the challenge. It is open to anyone in the predictive business, and includes astrologers, palmists and face readers.</p>.<p><strong>Believer to sceptic</strong></p>.<p>Nataraj, who has spoken extensively on TV shows about astrology, was at one time making astrological predictions himself, and is now a rationalist and champion of scientific temper.</p>.<p>“The Constitution says we should develop a scientific temper,” he says. “And that is my objective in announcing this challenge.”</p>.<p><strong>Look back, forward</strong></p>.<p>This year’s challenge comprises five questions. Participants, who can take up the challenge with a security deposit of Rs 50,000, will be sent a photograph or horoscope with five common questions: (i) In what stream has this person obtained the first degree (arts, science, engineering, law, etc). (ii) Is this person married? If yes, tell us the year, month and date of marriage. (iii) In what job is this person working? (iv) Will the person visit one of three pilgrim centres in Karnataka in the month coming up. (v) Also, in the same month, will the person buy a vehicle?</p>.<p>Participants forfeit their deposit if they try to contact the person whose past and future they are talking about.</p>.<p><strong>Rationalist who was once an astrologer</strong><br />Nataraj was a school teacher before he did an MA and became a professor of political science in Mumbai. In 2007, he started the Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha, in Bengaluru, to campaign against superstition.</p>.<p>“I was a believer until 20 years ago. I have studied all astrological texts, and drawn about 8,000 jatakas (horoscopes),” he told Metrolife. </p>.<p>An incident at a Mumbai nursing home shook his faith in astrology. He was about to draw the horoscopes of two just-born babies, a boy and a girl.</p>.<p>Their time of birth was the same. He realised he would have to write the exact same predictions for them.</p>.<p>Also, the texts said the children would be fair, because they were under the influence of certain planets and not the ‘dark’ planets. The first child he saw was dark. It was a matter of genetics: when the parents walked in, he realised they were dark, too.</p>.<p>In the last 20 years, he says, he has found predictive astrology completely lacking in any scientific basis. He then read many books on rationality and science, and completely changed his outlook.<br />“I found that humans and animals have birth, growth, figure, form, appearance, strength, intelligence, and everything else dependent on their genetics, environment, nature and behaviour, and not on the effect of planets, and their positions and conjunctions,” he says.</p>.<p>According to astrology, your entire future depends on the positioning of planets at the time of your birth chart. So if two people take birth at the exact same time, their birth charts should be the same, resulting in the same future. But that’s not the case in real life, he explains. It doesn’t turn out that way because every individual is different.</p>.<p>Nataraj believes ancient India had a keen interest in astronomy, but predictive astrology is an import. “It came from the Greeks in the 1st or 2nd century,” he says. “That has led to 2,000 years of lies.”</p>.<p><strong>Prize money</strong><br />Nataraj says he is offering his hard-earned, tax-paid money as a prize. “I am doing this because it’s important to me,” says the doughty fighter. </p>.<p><strong>Long-running challenge</strong><br />For 20 years in a row, Nataraj has dared astrologers to prove they can make accurate predictions, and offered a whopping cash prize. Once the details of the person is shared with the astrologer, he has to answer the questions within 15 days.</p>.<p>The last two questions (about the future) must come true within a month's time. No one has taken up the challenge yet.</p>.<p>Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha, the rationalist association he heads, works from Padmanabhanagar in Bengaluru. It can be contacted on 93437 43305 or rajsri6242@gmail.com</p>
